Got a chance to peer at the Shrum Mound rookery in Columbus this
afternoon; this is located along McKinley Ave between 5th Ave and Trabue.
        The island rookery there is really cooking, with maybe 50 great blue
heron nests, 40 double-crested cormorant nests, and ten great egret
nests visible on the north side alone. No idea of how many were on the
other side. Parent birds were passing up the murky yellow waters of the
quarry lake in favor of more distant venues for food.
        This is, as far as I know, the largest of only a few inland egret or
cormorant nest concentrations in Ohio, and helps to explain the
increased numbers of these species seen locally during recent summers.
Cormorants and egrets almost always insist on island sites for nesting
in Ohio, and this is an especially isolated one, what with the zealous
protections employed almost everywhere by quarry owners, as if there
were diamonds rather than limestone there.
Bill Whan
Columbus

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